Sad Anime
Watched episodes 25 and 26 of Touch the other day. First time in a long while that anime has made me cry (not since Robin's past in OP).
I loved the silent scenes. Something about the way the two characters looked at each other, and how Tatsuya knew, but couldn't find the words to tell his parents, let alone Minami--it all just mirrored how we deal with things in real life, and how sometimes, things seem so impossible that we can't even put them into words.
All in all, I'm having a kind of love-hate relationship with this anime. The hate is mostly directed at the main girl, Minami. I hate how her "dream" is for her childhood friend, Katusya, to make it to the Koushien (Japanese version of nationals for high school baseball). I hate how the one thing that she really wants in this world is something that she cannot do by herself. I hate how every single flashback to their childhood shows her encouraging the boys to do things, but never doing anything herself. The opening shows her participating in rhythmic gymnastics--but so far, she hasn't done it. She's one of the baseball team's managers, and her job seems to consist of telling the team "good luck" and making sure that Katsuya's mom packs him a balanced lunch. -_- I also hate how she likes Tatusya but still strings Katusya along, knowing full well that he likes her (it's frickin' obvious, and she's not stupid) just so that her "dream" can come true. So he can make her dream come true. Grrrr. I'm pretty sure that's not the impression that I'm supposed to get, but too bad.
Now, this anime came out in the 80s, before I was born, and I've been trying to consider that fact while watching it. Women didn't have as many rights in the US let alone in Japan. But, on the other hand, Minami's traits show up in many present-day anime. So, while time period might have something to do with her character, it does not excuse it completely. Grrr.
On Saturday, I helped out with my grandparents' "estate sale." It wasn't too much of a sale, since the children had decided to divide up most of the furniture and other expensive things amongst themselves. But we certainly had a lot of people there. 0.0 We were only doing it for one day, so at the end, we packed up what was left and took it to Goodwill. The house looked a lot cleaner. It was rather sad seeing people pay next to nothing for all of my grandparents' things. I mean, sure, my grandma shopped at Ross, but they also had some pretty expensive stuff in their house. I guess that's just how things work, though.